An IP address in a vendor’s license records is not a name. To turn it into one, the internet provider that assigned the address has to say which subscriber held it at that moment, and providers do not do that on request. Music and film companies were the first to use the courts to make them. Business-software publishers now use the same tools. We looked at how that works in 23 countries: which legal route each one offers, how long the provider keeps the records, and where software publishers have already used it.

23countries with a legal route from IP address to subscriber
6where business-software publishers have used it in a published case
359anonymous users in one software suit, Texas, 2024
7 dayshow long German providers may keep IP addresses